The 19th century French classicists

[Jozanny]

Let's say over the last few years that I have had a concentrated focus on Balzac, Hugo, Flaubert, Zola, and Maupassant, especially Maupassant. Other than the fact that they are all obviously French, do any of you believe there are themes they share in common as authors?

I know some of the obvious differences: Balzac was driven to portray compulsion as much as his larger than life obsessive patriarchs were compulsive in and of themselves; Hugo was concerned with social justice; Flaubert was the master of ennui, and Maupassant was his pupil, somewhat more concerned with hypocrisy, whereas Zola wanted to be the social scientist of the Second Empire-- but are there concerns they all shared in common?

[wessexgirl]

Let's say over the last few years that I have had a concentrated focus on Balzac, Hugo, Flaubert, Zola, and Maupassant, especially Maupassant. Other than the fact that they are all obviously French, do any of you believe there are themes they share in common as authors?

I know some of the obvious differences: Balzac was driven to portray compulsion as much as his larger than life obsessive patriarchs were compulsive in and of themselves; Hugo was concerned with social justice; Flaubert was the master of ennui, and Maupassant was his pupil, somewhat more concerned with hypocrisy, whereas Zola wanted to be the social scientist of the Second Empire-- but are there concerns they all shared in common?

Hi Jozanny. I've just been reading your comments over on the American Literature thread, and agree with you to some extent about the broadness of themes. Anyway, this is about the French classicists. I'm a great Zola fan, and have just bought 6 of his Rougon-Macquart series. I want to read Balzac's Human Comedy series too, as Zola was obviously influenced by him. I think, as I said over on the AL thread, that although writers are specific to their time and place, (and there's no-one more so than Zola) all classics have in common that they are universal and timeless. I haven't read Maupassant, but I am guessing that one of the things he has in common with the others is his humanity and compassion. The others definitely have that. I would also have said the urbanisation of society, and the effect on people, both good and bad, but I'm not so sure with Flaubert. I do want to read more of all of them.

[Jozanny]

The effect of urbanization is a nice one wessexgirl, thank you. I will add more later. Need to eat and feed my cats. I am one of *those* old maids

[JBI]

Try Rimbaud. He and Baudelaire seem like the strongest poets of the second half of the 19th century in France.

[wessexgirl]

I have an "adopted cat" Jozanny, a neighbour's cat visits me regularly, but I don't have the responsibility of the upkeep. All the benefits, with none of the responsibilities!

[Jozanny]

Hi Jozanny. I've just been reading your comments over on the American Literature thread, and agree with you to some extent about the broadness of themes. Anyway, this is about the French classicists. I'm a great Zola fan, and have just bought 6 of his Rougon-Macquart series. I want to read Balzac's Human Comedy series too, as Zola was obviously influenced by him.

I have not exhausted the Rougon-Macquart series, just the two most notable, Germinal and Nanna. The first was a pleasure, and the second was finished with some degree of pique!, but I do not what to go into too much spoiler detail if you just purchased them. Please do let me know which of your editions you like!

Henry James protested, "There is no laughter in Nana." And if one knows anything about James, it is a somewhat apt criticism.

I have read more of Balzac than Zola, but by the time I got to Cousin Bette for a reading group, I needed a break. A poster on one of these groups wrote "Balzac is a pain in the a**, but what a great writer he is!" It was a funny comment and summed up my attitude perfectly.

With Flaubert and Hugo I know the canon masterpieces, with the addition of Salammbo, which I may like better than M. Bovary, and with Maupassant I know all the short stories and two novels, he fascinates me.

So I want to write an essay. Not at the post-graduate level, or at least not yet, but my mind has been churning about what an extraordinary quantity of talent France produced in this era, which seems to have burned out with Maupassant's too early death, a fin de siecle moment, perhaps.

And with that, I hit a brain blank burp! But I will return to this. I've seized on that urbanization comment-- it seems a truism even for Balzac's cast of characters.

[Jozanny]

I have an "adopted cat" Jozanny, a neighbour's cat visits me regularly, but I don't have the responsibility of the upkeep. All the benefits, with none of the responsibilities!

Lucky you! Six weeks after my Oliver had to go to sleep, my aunt swooped down on me with two city kittens, and what a circus for the last two and a half years. They respect neither manuscripts nor my power chair!

But man do I have pet material, lol. Gotta get pics and upload.

[stlukesguild]

Try Rimbaud. He and Baudelaire seem like the strongest poets of the second half of the 19th century in France.

Baudelaire being the strongest... and certainly a great example of "urbanization" in the literature of the period... but don't underrate Verlaine or Mallarme.

In a book on Symbolism in the visual arts that I read a few years back I remember coming across the fact that 7 out of 10 children born in the French rural countryside did not stay. Out of that 7, 6 moved to the cities, and one to the US. Surely a cultural shock on a grand scale.

[blazeofglory]

French and Russian writers are uneatable and they are really masterpieces, magna-carta, I have read plenty of them of course, and all are marvelous indeed

[Jozanny]

Try Rimbaud. He and Baudelaire seem like the strongest poets of the second half of the 19th century in France.

Baudelaire being the strongest... and certainly a great example of "urbanization" in the literature of the period... but don't underrate Verlaine or Mallarme.

In a book on Symbolism in the visual arts that I read a few years back I remember coming across the fact that 7 out of 10 children born in the French rural countryside did not stay. Out of that 7, 6 moved to the cities, and one to the US. Surely a cultural shock on a grand scale.

I have given short rift to poetry in recent years, perhaps unfortunately, but even as a failed writer I have to limit the terms of any essay I may write, and I want to limit it to the authors listed, and find the right way. I don't want to drive myself crazy foot noting everything about Balzac and Hugo and Flaubert and Zola and Maupassant, but do want to say something about them as a group, as an American admirer who wants to know how, in such a span of time, this neurotic land mass, steeped in blood guilt with a mess of a Revolution and terror, which makes that of the States look like genius, produced such a body of work, which reverberates to this day. Maupassant even prefigures, weakly, granted, but still there, the society of victimization that America and a little of Europe, perhaps, has become.

I've read a little Baudelaire. Rimbaud draws a blank, but maybe I can quote a few lines if my thesis actually takes shape. Not sure how many gaps in my knowledge I have to fill.

[stlukesguild]

Jozy... As a visual artist/bibliophile I find myself attracted to poetry perhaps more strongly than to the novel... although I have certainly read more than my share of them. It probably relates to the fact that there is something of a closer link between poetry with its heightened or concentrated language and the visual arts... where there is an equal measuring out of each and every brush-stroke... Where the novel is more about narrative poetry is more evocative... suggestive... symbolic... metaphorical... and embraces the absolute sensuality of language... words.

French 19th century poetry is surely among the finest: Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Victor Hugo, Theophile Gautier, Verlaine, Mallarme, Nerval, Valery, Maurice Rollinant, Jose Maria de Heredia, etc... I've come across claims for Victor Hugo as the greatest of them all... and assuredly the recent translation of Selected Poems by the Blackmores suggest that there is much more to him than Les Miz and The Hunchback. Still the consensus tends to go with Baudelaire... and he has been marvelously serviced by translators for some decades now. I personally prefer Richard Howard's versions... but have several others as well.

Bloom has pointed out that French literature has often followed the "schools" far more closely than Anglo literature, and as such there is a constant reverence for "classical" form. Baudelaire, in many ways, is a decadent... an artist clearly rooted in classical form and a master of such... who inverts it or turns it upon its head. In a way this is vastly different than what Wordsworth or Whitman or even William Blake do... simply ignoring such forms... and it explains the absolute shock of Rimbaud... who essentially does the same. Nevertheless, I don't mean to suggest that Baudelaire's adherence to classical forms equates with his being less original or less "modern". In many ways he is the first "modern" poet... the poet of the great metropolis of Paris. My personal love of Baudelaire is often rooted in his sensual/sensory suggestiveness. He is able to convey or suggest the various senses (scent, touch, sound... as well as sight) as a means of evoking a desired mood or atmosphere. In this, he has built upon Gautier and ultimately Poe (his stories, not his poems) at his finest. There is even a disorienting confusion of the senses that presages Rimbaud... and Surrealism.

Rimbaud is the boy wonder and L'enfant terrible wrapped into one. He is virtually a mature poet at 14 and by age 19 he has abandoned poetry for good and gone off smuggling arms in Africa... after having shaken up French poetry for good, and left Verlaine a mere shell of a man. His central works are certainly The Drunken Boat, The Season in Hell, and The Illuminations. The Drunken Boat is the most traditional in form... but may just be his greatest single poem: a visionary passage into a personal "heart of darkness". The Season in Hell and The Illuminations are both mgnificent examples of the French "prose poem". Both collections can be best described as "visionary" (again with that word... yet Rimbaud insisted that to become a visionary was his goal... through a disordering of the
senses. Rimbaud succeeded at his efforts where Ginsberg largely failed.) In the Illuminations, especially, Rimbaud has begun to push poetry beyond any literal "meaning"... to the point that it verges on Surrealism, if not abstraction.

Where Rimbaud is the Romantic who revolutionizes French poetry, Mallarme is perhaps the formalist. His language is almost hermetic... as rigorously wrought as the diamond-like gems by Dickenson... and just as difficult to wrap one's mind around. With his final poems he virtually has become an abstract poet. He also is a poet who like William Blake has a clear notion as to how the poem should look upon the page... believing that the visual perception is part of the whole experience. His famous "Dice Thrown..." is essentially a visual poem... not to be experienced or read in a linear manner... but rather "read" as one might "read" a painting... the eye led to areas of the greatest drama (the largest fonts) then picking up upon repetition and visual echoes.

Verlaine is perhaps the old man among the top tier of the French poets... but he may just be the most magical... subtle... sensitive... the poet of the most acute sensibility... at his finest. His later work is quite often vulgar... and Verlaine is bad at vulgar. His early collections such as Poems satuniens and Fetes galantes are marvelous... poetic (can one use that word to describe poetry?)... beautiful... wistful. To my mind they recall something of the mood or atmosphere of Robert Herrick... or the melancholy dream-like reveries of the painter Watteau. It is no surprise that Verlaine is among the favorite poets of the composers Debussy and Faure. Clair de lune and other poems are musical already.

[Jozanny]

Rimbaud is the boy wonder and L'enfant terrible wrapped into one. He is virtually a mature poet at 14 and by age 19 he has abandoned poetry for good and gone off smuggling arms in Africa... after having shaken up French poetry for good, and left Verlaine a mere shell of a man. His central works are certainly The Drunken Boat, The Season in Hell, and The Illuminations. The Drunken Boat is the most traditional in form... but may just be his greatest single poem: a visionary passage into a personal "heart of darkness". The Season in Hell and The Illuminations are both mgnificent examples of the French "prose poem". Both collections can be best described as "visionary" (again with that word... yet Rimbaud insisted that to become a visionary was his goal... through a disordering of the
senses. Rimbaud succeeded at his efforts where Ginsberg largely failed.) In the Illuminations, especially, Rimbaud has begun to push poetry beyond any literal "meaning"... to the point that it verges on Surrealism, if not abstraction.

And now I remember who Rimbaud is, thank you for that.

You will not get a debate from me about one genre over the other, trust me on that.

I do not recall if you and I ever discussed this on Yahoo Groups. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that you took umbrage with me for asserting James was greater than Cervantes, but since I am now wary of such comparisons I'll modify that contention, but I started out publishing as a poet--and due to that, immersions such as yours and Virgil's have been diffident.

I cannot explain it in any logical fashion, and I do have moments of being deeply moved, or finding a deeper insight, such as when Sche posted the link to Bishop and I studied *One Art* after having heard it read, but I think being a writer, and I am 3 kinds of writer, poet, creative writer, and freelance journalist for money, creates a kind of membrane.

Since I publish poetry, I don't want to be too influenced by either betters or contemporaries, and so the membrane holds me back, as it were, from too fine a scan, or too deep an analysis, unless it be in forms from which I am a few steps removed.

But, when it comes to novelists, I know I will never achieve Flaubert's artistry, so it is there I can parse and drool and struggle to understand and say fine things about.

I am sure other published and practicing poets feel differently. I've become a fan of Robert Browning in recent years, because I have a long poem about the Medici, and so let myself get lost in Browning's narrative forms, so I can apply the past to whatever I am doing with the thing.

[stlukesguild]

Since I publish poetry, I don't want to be too influenced by either betters or contemporaries, and so the membrane holds me back, as it were, from too fine a scan, or too deep an analysis, unless it be in forms from which I am a few steps removed.

The "anxiety of influence"? So you are a Bloomian after all. Seriously... his theory is surely not without merit. As a visual artist I more than understand the anxiety of suspecting or realizing that what one has done is but a variant upon something by one's betters. I don't allow this anxiety to keep me from close study of other artists, however. Bloom's theory is that the strongest authors essentially misread their idols... convert them into something truly new. I am somewhat of the belief that my immersing myself in virtually everything, no single voice will grab a hold on me... although I certainly maintain certain idols over others. What can you do?

[Emil Miller]

Hi Jozanny. I've just been reading your comments over on the American Literature thread, and agree with you to some extent about the broadness of themes. Anyway, this is about the French classicists. I'm a great Zola fan, and have just bought 6 of his Rougon-Macquart series. I want to read Balzac's Human Comedy series too, as Zola was obviously influenced by him. I think, as I said over on the AL thread, that although writers are specific to their time and place, (and there's no-one more so than Zola) all classics have in common that they are universal and timeless. I haven't read Maupassant, but I am guessing that one of the things he has in common with the others is his humanity and compassion. The others definitely have that. I would also have said the urbanisation of society, and the effect on people, both good and bad, but I'm not so sure with Flaubert. I do want to read more of all of them.

We have met already on the LNF but whilst browsing former threads I came across your comments on Maupassant's possible humanity and compassion. I'm afraid you won't find much in this writer's output, because he was an unabashed hedonist; thanks to the fabulous wealth he made from his writing.
He is not sympathetic to his characters as Hugo and Zola are. They are merely the means by which he creates great stories - and two of his novels are great i.e Bel Ami and Une Vie (translated in English as A Woman's Life.)
There has always been a sniffy attitude by the French literati towards Maupassant, but just as I have made a point in visiting the tombs of Zola and Hugo (they are buried next to each other in the Pantheon) so I have been to visit Maupassant's in the Cimetiere Montparnasse; he could tell great story with the best of them despite the Academie Francaise.

[Etienne]

Ducasse (Comte de Lautréamont), Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Leconte de Lisle, Vigny, Musset, Dumas, Stendhal, Lamartine, Rostand, Huysman, Mérimée, Barbey d'Aurevilly (among those who haven't been named yet) and many more could be looked into. As you are looking to consider France artists of that time as a group, I would assume that the bigger sample you have, the better.